Climate change is one of the greatest challenges to society globally – with soaring temperatures, rising sea levels, air pollution and more frequent and deadly natural disasters. Many individuals, organisations and scientific experts are continuously raising awareness of the dangers and campaigning for a greener future. This includes disabled climate activists!
What are disabled climate activists?
It is usually assumed that disabled people can only campaign on one thing – disability rights. That is not true. People with disabilities and health conditions are just as passionate about looking after the environment and saving the planet as everybody else.
In many cases, they are even more determined to tackle the climate crisis because global warming can have an even bigger impact on the disability community. This is known as the intersection of climate and disability.
For instance, people who have respiratory conditions or other chronic illnesses find it harder to regulate their body temperatures and have more difficulty breathing in more polluted areas.
There are also concerns surrounding disabled people’s safety and welfare when involved in natural disasters such as wildfires and flooding. When authorities are putting together policies and evacuation plans, they tend to not consider the needs of disabled people.
For example, people with disabilities may not be able to evacuate a building quickly or those who require mobility equipment may not have access to it or could have their equipment damaged because of a natural disaster. Also, people with sensory or cognitive impairments may not be able to access the information available to them when in a natural emergency.
These are just some of the reasons why disabled people are two to four times more likely to be injured or killed in a natural disaster.
Furthermore, many disabled people would like to live more sustainable and greener lives, but they are victims of eco-ableism, with limited accessibility to public transportation and the need for plastic products such as straws, feeding tubes and breathing masks, the changes being proposed to tackle the climate crisis are not considering the needs and abilities of people with disabilities.
In addition, disabled climate activists also have to face barriers when trying to access and attend climate events such as conferences and protest rallies.
Sometimes, there is poor access for people with limited mobility or wheelchair users, no alternative information for people with sensory impairments and no additional support for people with cognitive impairments or other conditions.
Therefore, not only are disabled climate activist fighting for the environment, but they are also fighting for the right to have their say in climate talks.
Despite all these challenges, there are so many disabled climate activists dedicating their lives to campaigning, raising awareness and taking action to tackle climate change.
Here are 10 disabled climate activists from around the world who are doing incredible things to help save the planet:
1. Daphne Frias
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Daphne Frias is a 25-year-old Latina youth activist. She has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. She is also a stage 4 Hodgkins Lymphoma cancer survivor. She is currently working on her master’s degree in public health. Daphne is fiercely proud to be a loud champion for the disabled community.
Fighting the climate crisis is something she is passionate about. Born and raised in West Harlem, New York, she has seen how minority communities are disproportionally affected by climate change.
She has faced barriers to accessing climate change events such as the 2019 youth-led climate strikes and COP26, where there was limited access to dedicated disabled sections and no access to the stages, even when she was invited to speak.
It was also widely reported, that at COP26, Israel’s Energy Minister Karine Elharrar couldn’t attend the summit’s first full day due to inaccessible entrances.
Despite this, Daphne is determined to attend COP28 this year in Dubai, UAE and continue to give marginalised people a voice in how we tackle the climate crisis and support the disabled community. She has even been fundraising to help cover the cost of her accommodation, food and transport for the event.
In addition, Daphne has opened up about how the rising temperatures are affecting her health. Her cerebral palsy impacts her ability to sweat, which makes it difficult to cope with the heat.
She also has concerns about what would happen to her in a natural disaster where she needs to be evacuated but may struggle to do so quickly due to the inaccessibility of her home.
You can find out more about Daphne Frias by visiting her website and following her on Twitter and Instagram.
2. Alex Ghenis
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Alex Ghenis is a writer, speaker, activist and consultant focused on disability rights and climate change. At age 16, he sustained a spinal cord injury in a bicycle crash. His experience as a student at UC Berkeley introduced him to the vibrant disability rights community, and he has been involved in disability rights education ever since.
Meanwhile, his studies focused on climate change, the built environment and renewable energy.
In 2014, he combined those passions – disability and climate change – when he started the New Earth Disability blog and, later that year, as a Research Fellow at the World Institute on Disability in Berkeley, CA.
In his six years at WID, Alex presented at numerous conferences and community events – co-managed grant-funded projects and contracts from foundations, state and regional agencies – and contributed to vital coalitions such as the California Disability and Disaster Coalition and the Bay Area Climate Adaptation Network.
In 2020, Alex transitioned to private consulting through Accessible Climate Strategies, was a part-time Associate at Social Policy Research Associates, and currently serves as the part-time Deputy Director at the budding non-profit Sustain Our Abilities.
As with any climate justice movement, Alex says there also needs to be more dedicated and explicit funding. He has been applying for grants to expand the work of Sustain Our Abilities, which is mostly run by volunteers. He said oftentimes he applies for grants that are focused on climate justice but don’t mention disability.
“I would love to see climate justice rhetoric be more inclusive of assorted oppressed groups, whereas right now it’s almost exclusively focused on race,” Alex said.
“And even from the perspective of other oppressed communities, and actually, specifically with disabilities, there are higher rates of disability and higher rates of poverty and the rest of it in our racial minority communities. There are a lot of intersections and overlaps.”
You can find out more about Alex Ghenis by visiting his website and following him on Twitter and Instagram.
3. Kera Sherwood-O’Regan
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Kera Sherwood-O’Regan is an Indigenous and disabled climate activist from New Zealand and lives with Fibromyalgia.
She is the co-founder of Activate Agency, an Indigenous and disabled-led social impact agency specialising in ethical campaigning and narratives for climate justice and social change.
Working in partnership with non-governmental organisations (NGOs), governments and their agencies, and affected communities, Kera’s work centres structurally oppressed communities in social change movements to drive campaigns that are powerful, effective and equitable.
With more than 15 years’ experience in the climate movement, Kera is passionate about bridging gaps and building strong relationships across Indigenous and disabled people’s organisations (IPOs & DPOs), and environmental NGOs to strengthen Indigenous and disability inclusion in climate campaigning globally and locally.
She has participated annually, since COP23, in the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change. As a founding member of the SustainedAbility Disability and Climate Network, Kera has built relationships with ministers, officials and broader civil society to highlight the effects of climate change on her communities while advocating for greater recognition of the rights of Indigenous people and people with disabilities in the climate negotiations.
Most recently, Kera was recognised in the BBC’s 100 Women of 2023 list. She told 1News that being named on the list brings “mixed emotions”.
“I feel very privileged and hopeful that I can use the opportunity to raise the profile on indigenous and disabled-led climate action, and hopefully help elevate the Mahi of other activists I’ve been privileged to work with and learn from,” she said.
You can find out more about Kera Sherwood-O’Regan by visiting her website and following her on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
4. Jason Boberg
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Jason Boberg is a proudly disabled climate change and disability rights advocate and social entrepreneur. He is the other co-founder of Activate Agency and SustainedAbility Disability & Climate Network.
Jason has advocated for disability-inclusive climate action at the UNCRPD and the UNFCCC, particularly campaigning for a formal Disability Constituency to bring disabled people together and promote disability rights within the UNFCCC.
At Activate Agency, Jason brings a critical disability rights lens to his work, providing training and policy advice to NGOs, DPOs, and governments.
Professionally trained as a film director, having worked in Los Angeles and in the start-up ecosystem of the San Francisco Bay Area, Jason can blend his expertise in disability rights and climate justice with his creative expertise to ensure that film productions and other media communicate powerful stories for social change while upholding the highest standards of rights-based and values-based messaging.
His recent work includes co-authoring the Nothing About Us Without Us: Climate Change and disability justice chapter in Climate Aotearoa, (Ed. Helen Clark).
He became the inaugural co-chair of the Disability Caucus at the UNFCCC after many years of advocacy for a Disability Caucus and Constituency in the UN Climate Negotiations.
He has also directed a disability community series on Covid-19 impacts in Aotearoa (New Zealand).
He has represented the global disability community making interventions at the COP26 High-Level Segment Assembly, and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities General Assembly.
Jason has spoken publically on issues, including the People’s Promise for Climate Impact flagship event during Climate and Biodiversity Week at the Dubai World Expo (October 3rd 2021), COP26 Peoples’ Plenary and Tolerance & Inclusivity Week at Expo 2020 Dubai (Nov 2021).
Jason currently serves as the co-chair of the Auckland Council Disability Advisory Panel and represents the Disability Advisory Panel on the Climate Change Working Group. He is also a Climate Reality Leader and Founding Trustee of the Awesome Foundation Disability Chapter, which provides micro-grants for disabled-led community projects around the world.
You can find out more about Jason Boberg by following him on Twitter and Instagram.
5. Pauline Castres
Pauline Castres is a disabled climate activist, migrant and artist who lives with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS). She has spent a decade working with local and national governments, EU institutions, and UN agencies on global health, climate, and disability rights policies.
Pauline has led major advocacy projects – for UN agencies, the British Medical Journal, The Lancet, and several health charities – including a project that won the EU NGO Health Award in 2016.
She previously worked for mySociety on a part-time basis as its first policy and advocacy manager to work on local climate emergency plans and accountability tools to enable citizens to influence policymakers.
In 2021, Pauline was named one of the thirty most influential disabled activists in the world by Diversability for the work she has done in policy and advocacy.
Furthermore, Pauline was chosen as one of the two hundred 2022 Practical Utopias fellows, a climate project led by Margaret Atwood.
Lately, Pauline has done some freelance policy and advocacy consultancy, which includes running trainings, speaking at events, leading policy research and analysis projects, doing podcasts, and writing opinion pieces and reports.
As an artist, Pauline has previously been commissioned to create logos, portraits and card designs. She also published several artivism pieces on disability and climate, including one on eco-ableism
Speaking to Greenpeace, Pauline looks back on her career and uses the example of a training session she ran for a significant environmental NGO last year, “everyone was so engaged, and the feedback I received was so positive. Experiences like this really give me hope that my work and so many other disabled activists do is challenging perceptions and building new partnership pathways.”
You can find out more about Pauline Castres by following her on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
6. Carlos Kaiser
Dibujando para un nuevo manual para ONU pic.twitter.com/sdLu4lH7ZO
— carlos kaiser (@kaisermansilla) January 31, 2020
Carlos Kaiser is a person with disabilities who has experience in inclusive ‘build back better’ efforts in Chile after two great earthquakes and tsunamis, wildfires, landslides and other disasters. He has upper and lower limb amputations.
Carlos was the first TG Disability Disaster Risk Reduction Global Focal Point. He is the Executive Director of Inclusiva NGO. Under his management, Inclusive NGO won the Risk Award 2014 and was nominated for the Sasakawa 2015 award.
Carlos represented people with disabilities in a High-Level Partnership Dialogue on “Inclusive Disaster Risk Management: Governments, Communities And Groups Acting Together” in Sendai 2015
He has been invited as a speaker and/or as a trainer in inclusive emergency management to Japan, Latvia, Argentina, Uruguay, Bangladesh, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras, Ecuador, Switzerland, Peru, Chile, and Thailand.
Carlos is the Chairperson of the Inclusive Management of Disaster Risk and Disabilities Reduction of Latin America and the Caribe Network.
You can find out more about Carlos Kaiser by following him on Twitter.
7. Harriet Larrington-Spencer
I have gained lots of new followers in the last week, so here’s a quick intro to me.
I’m Harrie. I tweet about my dogter Frida & inclusive active travel & public transport.
I also tweet about my experiences as a disabled person.
And I believe trans rights are human rights. pic.twitter.com/MHubsL03Kf
— Dr Harrie Larrington-Spencer (@tricyclemayor) July 27, 2023
Dr Harriet Larrington-Spencer (Harrie) is a Research Fellow at the Active Travel Academy at the University of Westminster. She is passionate about active travel, including how to help disabled people become more active.
Harrie was also a researcher in the Healthy Active Cities team and the Sustainable Housing and Urban Studies Unit at the University of Salford and completed her PhD in Human Geography at the University of Manchester.
Harrie’s research and personal interests focus on sustainability and inclusive active travel and ensuring that the needs of disabled people are centralised within environmentalism.
Harrie is a disabled cyclist and (along with her dog Frida) uses social media to demonstrate to her 15.4K followers how brilliant and inclusive cycling can be, as well as highlighting the specific barriers that disabled cyclists face in their everyday travels.
Recognising her work on inclusive active travel, Harrie has been invited by Mayor Andy Burnham to sit on the Greater Manchester Walking and Cycling Board, which takes responsibility for the strategic approach to walking and cycling for transport within the region.
Harrie is also a member of the British Cycling NorthWest Diversity and Inclusion Working Group.
Harrie has raised £10,000 to establish an inclusive cycle library within Greater Manchester. The library will enable disabled people to borrow non-standard cycles for free – and provide additional support including buddy riding and route planning, recognising that the cost of such cycles is a barrier to disabled people’s access and that one of the most important routes to start cycling for everyday journeys is to simply have access to a cycle and start giving it a go.
You can find out more about Harriet Larrington-Spencer by following her on Twitter.
8. Umesh Balal Magar
I am proud to belong to a community that is nothing but teaches me Humbleness, Acceptance, and tolerance. Now this community is on the frontline of climate disaster and I have a responsibility for them TO Provide CLIMATE JUSTICE.@NWCF_NepaSaFa pic.twitter.com/sOu6JPV9uw
— Umesh Balal Magar (@UmeshBalal) August 21, 2023
Umesh Balal Magar is a disabled climate activist who represents Nepalese Youth for Climate Action – a youth-led network that engages the Government of Nepal to ensure youth participation and representation in climate dialogue and action.
In Nepal’s mid-western district of Gulmi, Umesh strives to fight for climate justice for all, particularly those at the margins of society.
It was reported in Disability Debrief that Umesh did not talk about disability rights at first. It’s not that he wasn’t aware of the issues. He’d endured the impacts personally, in the precarity of living rurally during the rainy season, and in being denied entry into agroforestry, his preferred course of study.
But Umesh feared being typecast exclusively as a disability rights activist and not a climate activist. He didn’t want the stereotypes he saw holding people with disabilities back in Nepal to hold back his own ability to make inroads within climate spaces.
“We are stereotyped as needing sympathy but we need support, opportunity and representation,” he said.
Now though, Umesh is trying to address those systemic prejudices head-on, taking a proactive disability and intersectional focus to his climate work.
About a month ago, it was revealed that Umesh would train young climate activists with and without disabilities on disability-inclusive climate justice. Funded by Global Green Grants under the auspices of the Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, Umesh will facilitate the in-person training across seven provinces in Nepal.
The project aims to build capacity and create a report for the Nepalese Government as well as send a contingent to COP28 in UAE.
You can find out more about Umesh Balal Magar by following him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
9. Ananya Rao-Middleton
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Ananya Rao-Middleton is a freelance illustrator and disability activist who uses her work to speak truth to the voices of marginalised communities. Her experiences of being a woman of colour living with multiple sclerosis and post-concussion syndrome inspire her creative work.
Vivid, vibrant and explorative, Ananya is known for using eye-catching colours and powerful affirmations to bring her work to life. Understanding that art is inherently political, her illustrations focus on telling stories about living at the intersection of race, disability and gender.
As a believer in using her creativity to enable positive change, she has also been a speaker in talks and panel events as well as being the face of branded campaigns.
As an artist, she has been commissioned to create pieces related to climate change. In the summer of 2023, Greenpeace asked Ananya to create a Well Mural for Glastonbury Festival and an inclusive Greenpeace march T-shirt, which illustrates people from different cultures and abilities who want a “greener and fairer planet”.
You can find out more about Ananya Rao-Middleton by visiting her website and following her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
10. Áine Kelly-Costello
It can be overwhelming feeling like the lone disabled person in climate movement spaces.@ainekc95 shares some of their own journey and reflections from those working in this space. With @UmeshBalal @kaisermansilla and more.https://t.co/vlUV5mEzKZ
— Disability Debrief (@DisDebrief) October 18, 2023
Áine Kelly-Costello is a proudly disabled storyteller, climate researcher and activist living in New Zealand. They are blind and living with the chronic effects of long Covid.
Áine’s Master’s thesis focuses on understanding the practice of climate journalism in Aotearoa NZ. Áine has also worked as a journalist and in campaigning on climate and disability.
They first got into climate activism as a university student after seeing a guest talk by a pre-eminent climate justice advocate, Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350. org. He explained that we’d already burnt five times as much coal, oil and gas as the planet could afford and that we had the power to join together and call for institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels.
This inspired Áine and other students to start a powerful climate change movement at the University of Auckland. Within the movement, Áine soon realised the barriers disabled people face in the climate crisis and this led them to focus on the connection of climate and disability justice.
As a journalist, Áine has written dozens of articles on disability and climate change, interviewing and collaborating with many other disabled climate activists. They have contributed content to several publications including Disability Debrief, Unbias the News, Stuff, The Conversation, The Spinoff, plus many more.
Áine also hosts and produces a podcast called Enabling Commons, which is a space for dialogue among people with disabilities to explore strategies that will transform our environments, our commons, to be meaningfully enabling for all.
Every episode, they have conversations with activists, experts and scholars at the intersections between disability and climate change, unpacking and sharing knowledge.
You can find out more about Áine Kelly-Costello by following them on Twitter.
Other disabled climate activists
Of course, this is only a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of disabled climate activists around the world. There are so many more disabled people from different countries, ethnicities, age groups, genders, religions, sexualities and cultures, all fighting for a cleaner, greener, safer and inclusive environment for all.
Here is a list of some more disabled climate activists you should check out and follow on social media:
- Greta Thunberg – Autistic climate justice activist
- Chris Packham – Autistic wildlife TV presenter and conservationist
- Gemma Bailey-Smith – Environment Manager – Sustainability Data & Reporting at EKFB JV
- Katherine Warburton-Gibb – Climate activist and freelance writer
- Emma Geen – Disability Climate Activist Bristol Disability Forum
- Samantha Hurley – Student journalist and climate activist
- Madeline Crowley – University graduate, blogger and climate activist
- Eleanor Dolan – Disabled youth and climate organiser
- Valarie Novack – Disability policymaker
- Julia Watts Belser – Academic Professor in Disability Studies and Jewish Studies
- Izzy Laderman – Communication activist, educator and leader of the Disability Awareness Around the Climate Crisis(DAACC)
- Z Frohna – Deputy Director of the Science and Tech department at One Up Action, a member of Polluter’s Out’s JEDI group and co-founder of Operation: Oceanfixer
- Abby Besler – Jewish Youth Climate Movement Coordinator at Hazon
- Dr. Mostafa Attia – Disabled activist, researcher and consultant
Do you consider yourself to be a climate activist or know other disabled climate activists? Have you found accessible and affordable ways to live sustainably? Let us know in the comments box or on social media.
